[ritamax]

I visited this scientific mediterranean garden, which belongs to Laboratoire Arago and is a part of a so-called Biodiversarium. It is 3 km inland on a slope of a very sunny hill and has plants from different mediterranean climates, several Quercus, Fraxinus and olive trees. They have also an exhibition hall, at the moment they had for example information about different types of mediterranean climate. The garden has no special decorative value, but the interesting thing was to see, how the plants cope with the heat and the drought in the beginning of August. The overall impression was quite dried out. Unaffected and lush for example Plumbagos and Polygalas and a very interesting tree Maclura pomifera (syn. M. aurantiaca). Here photos of that one and a Jubaea chilensis.

[pamela]

The photo of the Maclura pomifera (syn. M. aurantiaca) is so interesting to me.   40 plus years ago we made several long trips around Europe in a VW camper van ....as you do when young!   One year we came across this strange fruit hanging from trees in possibly (I cant remember now) Eastern Turkey or northern Greece or it may have been Bulgaria.  We picked one hoping it might be a nice fruit to eat (we lived very,very frugally on those trips!) and it much to our disappointment it was filled with a sticky white hard mass. For years I have thought about that tree and the fruit from time to time wondering what it was and now you have solved it for me.  Thank you,Rita!. 

[MikeHardman]

I grew Maclura pomifera once; it was one of many trees I tried as bonsai (without success in this case). It has some quite interesting history/uses, eg. htttp://arnoldia.arboretum.harvard.edu/pdf/articles/865.pdf; that article includes some handy cultural info.

[ritamax]

Wonderful story, Pamela! The plant seems very promising - fast-growing, pestfree, tolerates alkaline soil, therefore a good alternative to citruses, which get easily chlorotic and need a lot of care and water. Maclura seems to be very drought tolerant, it has glossy green leaves at this time of the year. I read, that it tolerates different kind of soils, also sand with clay, but should be given good drainage. It does not like competition. For fruit with seeds one would need a female and a male tree, but a sole female tree makes seedless fruit. The fruit in the house can keep out mosquitos and cockroaches, it functions as an insect repellent, which has been patented this year. There is a variety inermis with no thorns available. One can sow the seeds directly in the autumn or January-February in the greenhouse. I will surely try it, I really liked the tree and all the stories about it.